Peepshow

Peepshows have been an Internet meme for a long time.  I think it started with The Lord of the Peeps , and went mainstream when the Washington Post did a national contest.  Last year's finalists are here.  (If you've never heard of a Peepshow, as opposed to a peepshow, it's a diorama made with marshmallow Peeps--chicks and bunnies--and given a silly title with the word "peep" or "bunny" in it.)

And then it occurred to me: why not do this at school?  What fun!

But Peeps in the fall?  How?  Ah, grasshopper--this is why one studies Google-fu.  A fair amount of searching led me to a secret web site that sells chick Peeps year-round, but only by the case.  Fine by me!  I ordered three cases (24 boxes of five Peeps).  I also bought popsicle sticks and googly eyes.  The day after Halloween, I also went around and bought up a whole bunch of ghost and pumpkin Peeps for half price.  That, in addition to the resident supplies I have in my classroom and what I could steal scare up elsewhere in the school building, set me up!

The Peeps weren't supposed to arrive for another few days, but UPS turned out to be surprisingly efficient, and they arrived way early.  I checked the calendar.  In a week we have parent-teacher conferences.  Perfect!

Today I handed out the assignment.  "You'll be creating a Peep diorama about a myth we've read in class.  On the due date, we'll put them in the library.  I'm going to gather a set of secret judges who will decide the winners for Best in Second Hour, Best in Sixth Hour, and Best in Show.  I'm also going to alert the local paper and the TV station--what the heck--so maybe there'll be a write-up there.  I'll post all the Peepshows on the school web site as well, and the Peepshow will be on display during parent-teacher conferences, too."

Both my sections of mythology got pretty enthusiastic about it.  They plunged through cardboard boxes, cut paper and cloth, and altered Peeps.  The ghosts turned out to be surprisingly popular--several students wanted to try depictions of Hades--so this evening I had to run out to the store and score a couple more cases of them.  I took pictures with my digital camera so we can post the Peeps process.

The best part is, a lot of my students dove back into their mythology books to re-read descriptions of certain scenes--without prompting from me.  Yay!

Transposition

New music freaks Aran out--it's often a struggle to get him to learn a new piece, and he often goes into a full autistic meltdown over mid-song key changes.  No lie!  He hits the key change, and just freaks.

And yet, he loves to transpose music on the fly.  One song that he just hated because "It's so hard!" he finally mastered. Just today he sat at the piano and played it, watching me out of the corner of his eye as he did so.

"Did you hear me play that?" he said.  "It's in C instead of G."

"Pretty good, " I said.  "Did your piano teacher tell you to do that?"

"No," he said.  "I did it because I wanted to."

Oddly, this was the song that has a key change in it.

Sheesh.